You know those nigh-omnipresent Pimsleur ads? Well, a few weeks ago I clicked on one. The lady in the video said that they had a method of teaching language that unlocked the language-learning software in the human brain and that after thirty minutes a day for ten days I'd be well on the way to learning another language--not fluent, but on my way. Plus it cost less than ten dollars, the shipping was free, and it came with a money back guarantee. What wasn't to like? So I bought it.
First off, I didn't get ten days' worth of lessons, but only eight. Second, there was some damage to a couple of the CD's causing difficulty in playing them (pops, skips, periods of silence, etc.). Not really enough to complain about, but you'd think Pimsleur would be able to send undamaged CD's to their customers.
Third, without being told until my CD's came in, I had unwittingly joined some sort of "book of the month club" type deal where I'll be receiving more lessons every month, though I have the right to use them for thirty days and send them back without paying. Not a bad deal, but I probably wouldn't have bought them in the first place if I'd known.
And fourthly, the simple fact is that all the information on the four CD's, as useful as it is, is barely a drop in the ocean to learning the language. They point out that the actual vocabulary necessary to get by in day to day situations is actually rather small, but this was still very little. I'd say it was only worth what I paid for it.
All my life I've been fascinated by languages and have tried to learn a second one, with absolutely no success except in one case: Biblical Hebrew (a textual language comprehended visually, not a spoken language comprehended aurally). Even my attempts to learn Modern Hebrew have been failures.
Naturally the language I sent for was Modern Hebrew, and it actually does seem to be a good way to process the language. The only problem is the small amount of information on only four CD's.
My problem in language learning is that I don't comprehend them very well aurally. If I look at a pointed Hebrew text (and Modern Hebrew is unpointed, so I can't read it either) I can figure out what part of speech it is even if I'm unfamiliar with the word. But spoken language flies past my ear so fast that I don't know what I've just heard. I just stand there gaping while my interlocutor waits for some sort of response.
I also seem to have trouble automatically knowing when to use masculine and feminine adjectives and forms of verbs. Intellectually I know all about this, but when I'm trying to respond immediately I'm liable to use the wrong gender.
Anyone else have any language learning woes they care to share? Misery (and failure) loves company.
For example, it is not unusual in international cities like London, NYC, Paris, etc., for parents from, say, China, to move to NYC with a baby and have the child eventually attend (American) pre-school. They will then have a nanny from Sweden or Poland or Puerto Rico. The child will be able to converse in Mandarin, Swedish and English and not miss a beat. Astounding--I have seen it several times myself.
Perhaps you haven’t tried the musical route, ZC. You could learn the lyrics to songs in another language.
I also like to watch documentaries on YouTube—it doesn’t matter if I don’t understand them. I’m just a baby sopping it up. Think about it, it takes a baby some 20 years to finally speak as an adult—who knows, you also might have 20 years left! True, babies live in the language environment; our success depends on creating a language environment.
One of my favorite is the sound of Swedish—melodious warbling. Watch the “Wallander” series in a marathon and you’ll learn to warble in Swedish. That’s nothing to sneeze at, because once you can babble in Swedish, you can give the ancient Greek a proper cadence and intonation.